


like real people do

by thepensword



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Taakitz Week, i have never written a soulmate au ever in my life it had to happen eventually, it was supposed to be all comedy but i have this angst gremlin that won't leave me alone, this is mostly fluff/comedy but also a bit angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 18:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16164041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: Taako is born with a raven feather on his arm.Kravitz is born with a mark in a shape that no one can identify.(They find each other anyway.)





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> i was actually going to draw this but there were too many panels and i ran out of time so it became a fic and grew some additional angst. i might still do the drawing. it will be purely comedic.
> 
> anyway this is the result of my brainstorming with a friend.
> 
> Taakitz Week Day 3: Soulmate AU

Taako is born with a raven feather on his arm.

When he is five years old, he is explained its significance. His soulmate. “One day, this raven feather will mean something about the one you will love,” says his aunt, and Taako smiles and wears his feather proudly. It’s an elegant thing, like some beautiful tattoo, and he laughs at his sister when they compare it to her frankly hilarious soulmark—a pair of denim pants. She scrunches up her face and pokes him right where she knows he’s the most ticklish.

“Maybe they’re really into fashion,” she says.

“Fashion? In _those_ jeans?” cackles Taako, and she chases him around the room until their aunt comes to catch them and put them both to bed.

Taako is born with a raven feather on his arm, and it’s the prettiest thing, and he loves it.

 

* * *

 

 

Taako gets older, and the world gets crueler, and then it’s just him and Lup against everything. He starts wearing shirts with longer sleeves to hide the feather; if this world is too cruel to give them a home, he thinks, then how can he possibly believe it would give him a soulmate? There is nothing in this world worth loving other than Lup. He doesn’t need anyone else.

He ignores the part of himself that looks for feathers in the faces of every stranger he meets.

 

* * *

 

 

When the world is devoured by the Hunger, Taako thinks, _well, that’s it then_.

“It’s gone,” whispers Lup, and she sounds so shocked, so broken, and Taako feels numb. Everything he’s ever known is gone.

But not her. Not Lup. He holds her hand tightly and does not think about raven feathers, or soulmates lost, or a home destroyed.

 

* * *

 

 

“Ha,” says Lup.

Taako raises an eyebrow and turns his head just slightly so he can see her face. They’re all curled up in bed together, and she’s using his chest as a pillow, and her golden hair is all sprawled across the covers. “Ha?” says Taako.

She lifts her arm in the air and pulls back the sleeve of her sweater. “Blue jeans,” she says. “Of course.”

Taako blinks. He thinks of the look in his sister’s eyes after that night at the conservatory, of the smiles still on her and Barry’s faces even as they reformed for the start of another year. He thinks, _oh_ , and then he thinks, _fucking_ _finally._

“Lup,” says Taako, very, very slowly. “You know I love you. You are my world and I would commit many murders for you. But Lup. Lup?”

“Mm?”

“You are a _fucking_ idiot.”

Lup sits up, indignant, and pokes him right in his most ticklish spot, just like when they were kids. Taako does _not_ squeal, but he definitely kicks her, so she sits on his legs and pokes him again.

“Why am I an idiot?”

“Lup, it’s been like over fifty years. All this time, you’ve had a pair of jeans on your arm and a teammate named Barry _fucking_ Bluejeans, and you just thought that was a coincidence?!”

She pauses. Blinks twice. Fiddles with her hair. “Huh,” she says. Then, sheepishly, “I mean. Yes?”

Taako kicks her off the bed and she hits the floor with a soft thud, dragging all the blankets with her. “Fucking stupid,” says Taako as she clambers back up and cuddles up around him.

“Yeah, but you love me anyway,” says Lup, and Taako sighs because she’s right and they both know it. He loves her more than anything. He loves her to the ends of every world they've come across. He’d do anything for her.

He doesn’t want to share her.

(He doesn’t want to admit that he’s jealous, even as the raven feather sends imagined prickles against the skin of his arm.)

She notices, because of course she does, and she grabs his arm and brushes a gentle thumb over the elegant lines of the feather. “You’ll find someone,” she promises. “Even if it’s not who you were expecting.”

 

* * *

 

 

(Maybe that’s why he even gives Sazed a chance.)

 

* * *

 

 

Taako is in a lab.

Taako is in a lab with two doofuses that he would never admit he’s come to think of as friends, and the world around him is turning to crystal and they’re on the clock to stop the apocalypse, but hey, what else is new.

Actually, he already knows the answer to that question. What’s new is the handsome fella standing before him in dark robes and with a large scythe in hand. Taako examines him appreciatively. The guy’s a looker, so at least there’s that, even if he does seem to be trying to kill all of them.

“By order of the Raven Queen—” begins the Reaper, and suddenly things sort of. Click.

_Huh._

Taako doesn’t remember why he’s always been so sure his soulmate is gone, but he’s been sure for as long as he can remember. And yet, there’s that raven feather, right there on his arm, and here’s this Reaper, wearing feather robes and with bright red eyes that make Taako feel all gross and warm inside.

_Well._

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Krav?” says Taako. He’s laying on the ground with his head in Kravitz’s lap and he’s thinking.

“Yes, love?”

Goddamnit. God- _fucking-_ damnit. Kravitz is so sweet and romantic literally all the time and Taako _loves_ him and it’s been so terribly long since he’s loved anyone this much and even if they’re on a floating secret moon base and Kravitz is the Grim Reaper and Taako’s apparently died multiple times and he’s been so sure that he’d never find anyone to love this much, he knows that he wants this. He wants this more than anything else. He wants this so much that he _aches_.

He wants to love Kravitz. It’s terrifying, but he wants to love Kravitz, and he does, but he has to know. He has to _know_.

“I, well. I think you should...see.” And he pulls back the sleeve of his shirt and lifts his forearm to Kravitz’s eye level.

And he waits.

“Oh,” says Kravitz. “Wow.” And then he laughs and leans down to kiss Taako square on the lips and...and god, it’s so _nice,_ Kravitz is so _wonderful—_

He has to know.

“Can. I mean, it doesn’t matter, natch, but, uh. Can I see yours?”

Kravitz actually groans.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Kravitz is born with a shape on his arm that he can’t identify.

“What’s that?” says his sister, and pokes at the lighter patch of skin.

Kravitz frowns, because Lydia is older than him and she’s supposed to know everything. Edward hadn’t known either, and Mom had only stared.

“I don’t know,” says Kravitz, and he’s _frustrated_. “Nobody knows.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What’s your mark look like?” asks Kravitz’s first boyfriend.

“Well,” says Kravitz. “It’s...abstract.”

 

* * *

 

 

He asks the Raven Queen about it only once, and never again, because she takes one look and bursts out laughing.

The Raven Queen doesn’t _laugh_. She’s the literal, actual goddess of death. Yet here she is, laughing her head off at the mark on his arm that’s supposed to guide him to his soulmate.

“Oh, Kravitz,” says the Raven Queen. “One day, you’ll know.”

 

* * *

* * *

 

“Please do,” says Kravitz, and shows Taako his arm.

It’s sort of….a shape. Like a weird, pocket-shaped thing, all yellow on the outside and multi-colored on the inside. “Huh,” says Taako.

“What is it?” asks Kravitz, except he’s less asking and more pleading. “Please, what the fuck is this?”

Taako squints at it and turns his head a few different ways. “Huh,” he says again. “I have no idea.”

“God _damnit_.”

 

* * *

 

 

And so the end of the world comes to pass. The sky is black and the world is leeched of color, and the elven wizard Taako kneels in a circle of black glass that stretches around him for miles.

And the strings of fate unravel, and he pulls out a mirror, and the mirror is the link between worlds, and that link means salvation.

It also means understanding.

“Like this,” says Joaquin. “Now you fold the tortilla like this, see?”

Taako does see. He very much sees. He sees the shape of the tortilla, all folded over like a weird pocket, all yellow on the outside and ready to be filled with multi-colored ingredients and. Well, he’s seen that before, hasn’t he?

Taako drops his spatula and yells.

From the corner of his eye, he can see Joaquin jump. “What? What is it? Are you okay? Did the monsters get you? What’s—”

Taako slams his hand down on the counter and yells again. He furiously scoops the ingredients into the tortilla and squints at the mess and _fuck._

“It’s a _fucking taco!”_ he yells.

 

* * *

 

Taako and Kravitz are at a party after the end of the world. They are kissing and crying and laughing and loving, and then Taako pulls away and grabs Kravitz’s arm.

“I know what it is,” he says. He’s beaming, and breathless, and there are stars in his eyes.

Kravitz, for just a moment, is speechless. He stares at the mark on his arm and then at the man he loves and he is speechless.

“What?”

“It’s a taco,” laughs Taako. “It’s food. It’s a _taco_.”

Kravitz is still confused but Taako is shaking with such laughter that there are tears in his eyes and he’s starting to double over in Kravitz’s grasp, and, well, does it really matter?

He sweeps Taako up in his arms and swings him around in a circle, and they’re both laughing, and the world is saved and Taako is beautiful.

They kiss, still laughing, still a little bit crying, and they are so, so happy.

“I love you,” says Kravitz.

Taako breathes out. Taako breathes in. He closes his eyes and rubs absently at the raven feather on his arm.

(The world has never given him anything worth loving, there’s only been Lup, there’s _always_ been Lup, he hadn’t needed anything more.)

But god, it’s so nice.

“I love you too,” says Taako, and kisses his boyfriend.

 

* * *

 

 

Taako is born with a raven feather on his arm. Kravitz is born with a taco.

And they find each other. Against all odds, they find each other.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> well! that was fun and possibly not well written but whatever. tell me what you thought in the comments below or stop by my [tumblr](https://thepensword.tumblr.com)/[twitter](https://twitter.com/thepensw0rd)


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